Msaker has been a Mortal Strike Warrior for some time now. In his 40’s he was Fury, dual wielding for leveling goodness, but upon getting into Alerac Valley, and getting his mitts on an Ice Barbed Spear, he was specced for Mortal Strikes because that was good for burst damage and that’s good in the Battlegrounds.

Yes, I had a shield, and I knew the basics of holding aggro, and I considered myself a “Tank.” But sword and a board don’t a tank make. Yes, I’d tanked Scholomance to good acclaim. But how was I going to stack up in the Outlands? Where, oddly, there are no Warriors tanking. (I see why, since Outlands is clearly Paladinlands with regards to plate gear.)

So, I stepped into the machine, journeyed to the Undercity, and became transformed. I am now a Tanking Warrior. Full Protection down to Devastate, some points in Fury for crit chance, and the rest of the points in Arms. I’m not sure if it’s a typical build, but for me, it seems to fit the requirement. (I am now putting points into Iron Will after being stunned over and over by the Orcs in the Blood Furnace. I can’t tank if I’m stunned.)

(Scene from the Blood Furnace. Yes, that is a Tabard of the Protector from the Dark Portal opening event.)

So, my first order of business of practice with the new build. Into the Armory wing of the Scarlet Monastery. I killed everything, including Herod, and then Thunderclapped his students. I never even paused. Into the Cathedral wing. I killed everything, looking for Scarlet gear for my wife’s Paladin, and even started into the Cathedral itself, pulling, and killing, two at a time. Again, without a worry. I don’t know if I can solo the Cathedral or not, but it looks awfully promising that I can. The build worked, and I’ve got my buttons set up decently.

So, test of fire, back to the Outlands for a real instance.

I didn’t have any quest there, not having done the Ramparts yet, but into the Blood Furnace we went. A Resto Shaman for healing, a lock, mage, and somebody. Woot. One death and we cleared the instance.

So, still full of energy, positive rage, and after dinner, I returned, and this time went into the Ramparts, Paladin, Mage, Warlock, and Rogue with me. No deaths until we hit the Dragon. Woot. And this Paladin, Protection specced, healed like a Priest. I see now why Holy Priests are furious. This guy was main healing, and handled it great.

Protection Warrior Tank. This is going to be an interesting career move.

P.S. Devastate feels a lot like a Rogue finishing move. My MetaHUD puts sunders up like combo points, and while you can Devastate with any number, the more sunders you have, the more damage you do. But, rather than get cleared, the sunders are refreshed! So it’s like finishing moves that you can do over and over. At least that’s what it felt like.

7 Responses to

I’ve got a lot of hours in a warriors chain-mail birkenstocks and have yet to ever try out a full protection build. While I’ve tanked a fair bit – (mainly as a feral druid) – I’d always played my warriors as PvP toys. How’s the leveling now?

The whole ‘spec’ thing is quite an interesting discussion. I like looking at the different talents folks choose, because there seems to be an endless combination of them.

That being said, my 48 warrior has 15 points in protection and the rest in fury for now. I don’t get much chance to tank in instances because of time restrictions and how I basically refuse to PuG now that I’ve got enough friends to do dungeons with…

Until I really got into using my Warrior, switching stances and switching between dual wield and sword-and-board depending on my current opponent (melee vs caster), I never realized how much more of a challenge this class is than my original, a hunter. No wonder so many warriors suck as tanks!

The average player doesn’t get why the Priests are enraged but you summed it up nicely. The problem is that a Paladin or Druid that is Tank or DPS spec, can out heal a Holy Priest. That is simply absurd. Even Disc/Holy and wearing decent healing gear puts a Priest behind Paladin healing.

It just sucks that I’d have to have the best of the best, to match someone not spec’d for healing wearing non-healing gear.

Glad you tried something different and are liking it. Being able to have viable talent specs add more fun and variety to the game. All talent trees should be providing strong specs, or they’re designed wrong.